White Manor

3. The Spectral Boy

There was someone waiting for Freida when she re-entered the house. She found herself in the kitchen, long and covered with green marble. A black refrigerator without a door was indented in the wall, it's rotted contents spilling out. A ghostly figure sat atop the counter at the far end of the room. Pale blue and translucent, the shape eyed her coldly.

It didn't have a face, not really. Just the vague shadows of a nose and mouth, dim wisps of blue flame where hair should be. When it began to speak, it did so through the chill in the air, Freida felt more than heard it.

"You're back," is all the spirit said, its gaze never leaving Freida's.

Instead of fear, Freida felt a deep warmth in her aching bones. She didn't go numb as The Stone Lady had made her but felt happy for the first time that night. Freida let a smile pass her lips as she told the specter that she came back inside only to find the door out again. It shook its head from side to side.

"She's waiting upstairs. And It slumbers below. Your place is here."

A tinge of dread found Freida through the joy she was feeling.

"I'm leaving, right now!" Freida shocked herself with her own voice. It was the first time she had spoken since entering White Manor.

Her words echoed throughout the darkened corridors. The floor began to rumble as the ghost boy floated toward the ceiling.

"You're safer with her," was the last thing the specter said before raising through the roof, and Freida was alone in the shaking house.

Drawers opened and silverware toppled out, the long ago rusted sink sang to life, spraying black water over the green marble kitchen. The tile beneath Freida's feet began to crack and separate. She retreated further into the house, returning to the hall beside the fireplace.

Something stirred just out of her vision as Freida reached the staircase, and she made her choice.

The ghost had told her she was better off with HER upstairs than IT downstairs, right?

Freida pushed down her terror and dread and darted up the grey carpeted staircase. She dared not look back at the thing she knew was just behind her, but it seemed to halt its chase at the foot of the stairs.

Maybe the feeling the boy gave me wasn't a trick like that awful stone lady, she thought.

Maybe he was like me, lost in this house.

The thought didn't make her feel better.

The staircase reached a wall and then turned left, climbing high onto the second floor. At the top Freida came face to face with another painting, significantly more disturbing than the first. It depicted a witch being burned at the stake, a crowd of onlookers sneering at the judgment.

Freida stumbled backward and almost down the flight of steps she had just climbed, back into the claws of that thing. She steadied herself as the house stopped trembling and headed right.

This room was directly above the big green front door at the head of the manor. She could see through a window in the wall where the great chandelier attached to the ceiling, and she thought grimly of a hanged man she had seen on a tarot card when she was younger. To her left was another window, again covered in foliage, but she could tell it had begun to rain again.

Why has no one come for me yet? Freida wondered.

The girls...could they have come after me, into the house? Freida hoped not with all her heart.

They were her friends, after all.

Freida thought about jumping to the chandelier chain and trying to climb down into the entranceway but decided against it for fear of falling. It was a long way down and the hanged man image was still in her mind.

The ghost boy had told her there was someone else in the house, hadn't he? Maybe this HER he referred to could help her.

Freida was feeling desperate and not as frightened as she should be at this point, so she decided it was worth a try. Anything was better than waiting for that monster to find its way up the stairs after her.

So Freida turned around and began walking back to the stairs, and then past them to a dark hallway on the west side of the second floor. She dared a peek over the wooden railing but couldn't see anything in the gloom. That made her feel a little calmer, knowing the thing down there wasn't actively trying to reach her.

Up ahead were four doors, two on the right wall, one on the left, and one directly in front. Freida tried the closest door on the right first.

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The Thing Beneath the House stirred for the first time in ages. Its goal was close, its reason for existing. Elfreida had returned home.